Brain Science Podcast Forum

Patrick Pricken wrote:

Kent,

Why do you think there are fewer women in certain fields of science? We see the same thing in medicine, but it seems that once a certain critical mass is reached it becomes easier. For example, there are lots more women in engineering now than there were when I started college in 1974. (My graduating class had 3 women.)

You need more women in higher positions, enough so that those who are up there don't get scrutinized if they have a female lab assistant or something. You also need a greater sensitivity for gender discrimination which is often not only ignored, but really not recognized.

I just read a text about an experiment where they first asked teachers about their conceptions of gender and sciences and then had them grade tests from women who underwent special science programs. The grades were compared to the women's grades before the program and the results of a standardised test. The experiment showed that in the standardized test, the women had improved twice as much as when measured by the teachers' grades.

At least in Germany, women *do* have it much harder to succeed in a career (as opposed to being a housewife). On the other hand, we really need male kindergarten and elementary school teachers – in elementary school, the rate of women is well into the 80 percent.

As a man, I must admit that rationally, I would have no problem with affirmative action plans – I don't know how I'd react if that led to me not getting a specific postion, but I hope I'd be able to stick to my guns then. We need to get women up there, and in there.

IIRC, there are also many statistics which show a correlation between economic health of a country and the participation rate of women in the economy. Extrapolating from that, I'd wager a female's position on sciences can only be healthy and good. So it would have to be in the best interests of everybody involved to further women in sciences and in the general society, as well (at least until parity is achieved). But that's not how it works, unfortunately.

Also, there's this "common sense" that women are more suited to the softer pursuits like languages, teaching, maybe psychology but rather educational science, and so on. Which is of course horses**t – even though it's possible (and even plausible) that female brains have other strengths than male brains, those differences wouldn't be so grand as to preclude women from science, and the smartest brains are excemptions anyway.

This topic is a pet topic of mine, and I hope more people will write in and post some stuff. I'm really curious about this.

And yes, I LOVE smart women. Who doesn't?